


The Right Moment

by Huggle



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Dark, Hurt No Comfort, Imprisonment, M/M, changed dean, non-consensual medical care
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-07
Updated: 2017-11-07
Packaged: 2019-01-30 13:37:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,613
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12654621
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Huggle/pseuds/Huggle
Summary: The only way to save Dean was to subtly change him.  It was the right decision.  Sam and Cas don't regret it.They knew what they were doing.





	The Right Moment

**Author's Note:**

> This is a dark fic, so please be aware before you go any further. If you find confinement and control triggery, or abuse, this story has all of those. It's bleak, there's no other word for it.

The change in Dean is subtle….at first.

Cas notices it, all the same. He suspects Sam does too, but says nothing. After all, there’s little they can say. They knew this would happen.

Rowena had explained it was the price, the cost of saving Dean. 

As always, there was no debt they would not pay for that.

That’s not to say things don’t become difficult. Dean becomes more intent on dominating his space, and anyone in it. The bunker is his. 

They are his.

Sam is his brother, and Cas…

The third time Sam catches Dean pressing himself up against Cas, hands roving, he snaps and yanks Dean back.

Cas has to physically separate them. He’s troubled by how he has to bring strength to bear in order to do so. Even then, it still feels like Dean is _letting_ himself be held back.

It gets worse from there.

++

He’s dismayed, but not surprised, when Sam packs his things and tells Cas he’s leaving. 

It hurts, but Cas understands. Dean’s increasing need for control has brought both brothers to the edge of violence with increasing frequency. Cas feels fraught, exhausted from the need to be hyper vigilant.

He hopes that one day Dean will learn to adjust to what they had to do, and if that day comes so will a crushing level of guilt over any harm he’s done to Sam. Sam knows this just as much as he does.

And Sam is Cas’s family too. He’ll protect both of the Winchesters as best he can.

Still, when Sam goes to Cas’s room and starts throwing his things into another bag, Cas is tempted to let him. To go with Sam, to put some space between Dean and himself.

Dean’s presence is smothering, these days.

But Dean can’t be trusted by himself. Cas feels like he has only has a fingertip hold on Dean, that he could so easily lose him.

Dean, on the other hand, has a tight grip on Cas. When they reach the garage to find Dean leaning against the side of Cas’s truck, the angel knows Dean won’t let them leave so easily.

And if they did manage to go without him being aware, he would only come after them.

In the end, Cas persuades Dean to let Sam go and he himself will stay. He realises in that moment that he was never going to leave. Whatever happens, he and Dean are inextricably bound.

Sam wants to fight. Cas loves him, and he might love him more in that moment than ever before, seeing how loath Sam is to leave without him.

But Dean will fight, and the safest place for Sam to be (for the wellbeing of both brothers) is far from here.

So Sam goes, and Dean hugs Cas tight from behind and his embrace is the least comforting that Cas has ever experienced.

++

It’s a little known fact that angels in vessels can conceive. The sex of the vessel is irrelevant. In times of extreme crisis, the need to populate the ranks overrides any biological limitations.

Cas has received...attention, in this respect. There are still some angels who approached him, and made it clear that despite his history, his condition, they would accept him as their mate.

Cas made _it_ very clear that he was wholly uninterested in any union. He won’t surrender to some programmed imperative, or to the whim of some other angel who wants only his submission.

And he isn’t sure he wants a fledgling brought into this world.

The first time Dean broaches the subject, Cas is too stunned to answer, and Dean interprets that as agreement. 

Cas isn’t even sure it is possible. Despite what Dean is…. No, what he has become….

He is not an angel. Any union wouldn’t produce offspring. 

Dean seems to disagree. There are books, very old, delicate to the touch, in the bunker’s archives that are detailed studies of angelic reproduction.

Dean always seems to have his nose in one.

Cas begins to wonder if he should have taken his chances and left with Sam.

The first time Dean asks (tells) Cas about a plan to monitor his fertility cycle, he’s sure he should have.

++

Cas manages to dissuade Dean the first few times. Despite his past acts, he isn’t a skilled liar. He can lie by omission, but looking someone he cares for in the eye and deceiving them isn’t something he’s skilled at.

So he knows he shouldn’t have expected Dean to believe him for long.

When Dean asks him to come to the infirmary, Cas is cautious but he goes. Dean is so easily angered these days, stirred by some deep frustration.

The lights in the room are already on. Dean has folded a blanket and sat it on one of the beds, and Cas notices the stirrups, and the instrument tray and its contents, all gleaming.

He starts to back up, but Dean is a solid line of threat and intent behind him. He nudges Cas forward, one hand on his arm and the other on the back of his neck.

Cas knows that even if he were willing to fight Dean properly this time, to hurt him (which he isn’t, he never will be), he’s left it too late.

++

He tries to call Sam afterwards, but his phone is mysteriously missing. Dean says he has no idea what happened to it, but the next time they go into town, he’ll buy Cas a new one.

That never happens. 

++

Cas loses count of the times Dean puts him on the gurney and slicks up gloved fingers and the cold steel implements he’s become unpleasantly familiar with.

More often than is necessary, or advisable, and so often that he suspects this is now intended as a punishment.

He can read it in Dean, in the words he doesn’t say. If Cas would only cooperate, they could move to the next stage.

As if he is deliberately stalling, somehow inhibiting his body’s ability to prepare for fertilisation.

He isn’t. The only protection against conception is abstention. Even though he had decided no, the realisation (when it hits him) that it’s no longer his decision is shockingly painful.

He’s aware then, that perhaps he’d entertained some hope of bearing a fledgling, having a family.

And, because his current torments aren’t enough, he lets himself admit he would have wanted that with Dean. With Sam there, who he suspects would be the most doting uncle in existence.

But that was his fantasy and the reality is achingly different.

On the day Cas has finally endured beyond even his ability to continue, he waits until Dean is in the archives and limps upstairs to the garage.

All the car keys have been removed. When Cas tries the bunker’s door, it’s locked, and his key no longer seems to fit.

He’d been surprised Dean let him keep it.

Now he knows why.

++

Sam returns three months later. He has a rescue party in tow: Jody, Rowena, Garth and four other werewolves. 

It takes all Rowena’s skill to break the spell on the door. She’s already treated Sam to a litany of “I told you so’s’ but now she needs all her energy to get them in and she stills her tongue.

Sam can sense the quiet unease from her. 

When the door opens, Sam goes first. This might be the most terrified of anything he’s ever been.

The bunker is deadly quiet.

They leave two werewolves to guard the door, and the rest of them search the bunker room by room. 

It’s empty.

It feels like it has been for a while.

It’s Jody who sees it. They’d been so busy looking for Dean and Cas, that they walked right by them at first.

Dean’s cell phone is sitting on top of an old pile of books. It’s dead, the battery drained. But there’s a piece of folded paper underneath it.

Sam’s hands shake as he opens it up and reads it.

++

Dean sips his coffee as he studies the calendar on the diner table. In another three days, he’ll have to find someplace for them to hole up for a week or so. It means a delay in getting to the cabin, but there’s nothing else for it.

That’ll be Cas’s next peak, and he can’t miss the opportunity.

He’s a little frustrated (okay, pissed, he’s very, very pissed) that all his work so far hasn’t yielded a damn thing.

But he’s also feeling a little guilty now. He shouldn’t have taken it out on Cas. The angel’s been through a lot, and Dean figures maybe that’s slowing things down.

Done is done, though, and he’s still prepared to try and make it up to the stubborn little cloud hopper, despite all he’s done.

He marks the days he’ll have to watch out for in red marker, and then pays his bill and leaves.

The Impala’s parked at the far end of the parking lot, just in case.

Dean glances around to make sure no one’s watching, and raps twice, gently, on the trunk.

There’s a moment’s stubborn silence, and then he hears a muffled voice. He can’t make out the words, but the tone is clear.

Dean sighs. He wasn’t happy about dumping all his gear to make room in there. A lot of those weapons he’d had since he started hunting in the old days.

But sacrifices had to be made. By both of them.

If Cas would only come around and be reasonable, Dean’s sure he’d see that already.

But hey. He’s got time.

They’ve both got nothing but time.

**Author's Note:**

> Written for a prompt over at Kink meme. 
> 
> https://spnkink-meme.livejournal.com/129080.html?thread=44462136#t44462136
> 
> There might be more fills on this as there were a few different prompts in one.


End file.
